


flip a coin, this or that

by i_wont_fall_asleep



Series: always with one wing dipped in blood [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Implicit Mentions of Sex, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 21:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7818181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_wont_fall_asleep/pseuds/i_wont_fall_asleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The room was dark, the only illumination coming from a pale strip of moonlight beaming through the haphazardly shut curtains.  The swath of light cut across the bed and the two boys laying in it. It marked a path across Lance’s long legs that were sprawled out as he leaned against the headboard, and Keith’s chest and torso, where he was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow. </p>
<p>He couldn’t see the clock, but if he had to guess, Keith would put it somewhere at around three o’clock. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	flip a coin, this or that

**Author's Note:**

> A FEW THINGS:
> 
> 1) so I was rereading the other two parts (because I am a narcissistic ass) and ooh boy there are several typos and so I'm just going to make a point to try and actually proofread my work before posting but thanks for choosing to read that slop anyways yall are aces
> 
> 2) for timeline purposes, this takes place waaaay after the events of "origins" and a year or so after "ghosts" 
> 
> (and yes I am planning to write something for the in-between bits and confrontations)

“last night, the stars hung just a little crooked. and i wished the world to be kinder to you.”

_love, em_ , this is maybe a love letter #2

* * *

 

“You know, when I thought about this-”

“You thought about this a lot, did ya?” Lance cut him off, crudely eyeing him from where he was laying on the other side of the bed.

The room was dark, the only illumination coming from a pale strip of moonlight beaming through the haphazardly shut curtains.  The swath of light cut across the bed and the two boys laying in it. It marked a path across Lance’s long legs that were sprawled out as he leaned against the headboard, and Keith’s chest and torso, where he was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow. He couldn’t see the clock, but if he had to guess, Keith would put it somewhere at around three o’clock.

Which could only explain why he was bothering to say this at all.

“Of course,” Keith shot for nonchalance but probably missed by a mile, “Being prepared for anything is what Shiro always taught us.”

Lance groaned, smacking his head against the wall, “Please don’t mention our mentor while in bed—nothing makes me limper, honestly.”

Keith cocked his head, “I thought things were—”

“Look,” Lance gave him a level stare, “I promised you and Shiro and the rest of the loony lions I wouldn’t kill anymore. But that doesn’t mean him and I are best buds or anything. I still don’t think I’m wrong, exactly.”

“Then why—”

“Stop killing at all?” Lance huffed out a sigh, “There were things, here in Gotham, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to keep if I didn’t stop. At the end of the day, killing was just not as important.”

That sounded like a confession. It was too honest, too open, and Keith thought back to how Shiro always said the night revealed everything. The room started to feel heavy, which was usually the moment before Lance up and bolted and Keith didn’t want that.

“You never let me finish what I was going to say.” Keith pointed out, trying to lighten the air.

“Oh right,” Lance fixed him with a cocky grin, “You were talking about all the times you jerked it to me.”

Keith shot him a withering look, “Why do you always have to be so crass?”

Another sleazy smile, “All part of my charm, baby.”

“Uh huh.” Keith was not sure that was what it was called.

_False bravado. Coping mechanism. Hiding._ But Keith was invested in keeping things light, so he didn’t voice his thoughts.

“Anyways,” Keith pushed on, “I was going to say before you continued to interrupt me with your lewd behavior—I thought that us having sex would’ve been, I dunno, weird or something.”

“What why?” Lance looked baffled, “Don’t think zombies can bone?”

Keith winced, speaking softly, “Please don’t call yourself that.”

Lance just gave him a look but said nothing. They had many fights about the way in which Lance so cavalierly discussed his death and subsequent painful resurrection. Neither was looking to rehash any of that at the moment.

Lance pulled the other man’s hand into his, tangling their fingers together, “Okay, so why did you think it was going to be weird or whatever.”

The guy had always been tactile, something death apparently hadn’t changed—one of the few precious things that had managed to make it out of that warehouse wreckage.

“I guess I just thought with our background and all, it might be strange.” Keith said.

“You mean, the few times I tried to kill you and your closest friends?” Lance cocked his head, his features strikingly serious, “I am sorry for that.”

Keith shook his head. During those few months where Lance was hell-bent on burning Gotham and the Lions to the ground, they all had done and said terrible things. But they got through it, in the end, and in ways that Keith thought made them all stronger and better. The fact that the two of them were lounging in Keith’s bed, after a very nice round of post-patrol sex, had to be proof of that.

“No, I just that we were basically brothers.” Keith paused, “I mean, at least that’s how I saw it.”

“I didn’t.” Lance snorted, rolling his eyes.

_Well that was hurtful_ , Keith thought.

Lance must have noticed his surprised expression because he continued on.

“Look, the amount of puberty-induced wet dreams fueled by you in your original Red Lion costume..?” Lance whistled low, “Let’s just say there weren’t enough tube socks in the world to deal with that, okay?”

Keith wrinkled his nose, “Wait, seriously? You had a crush on me back then?”

“Crush?” Lance squawked indignantly, “Dude, you were my fucking bi-awakening!”

Keith was silent. That was news. He was constantly teased by the others for being unobservant, at least when it came to anything outside of work and cases, but how could he have missed it? Back then, he and Lance spent a fair amount of time together, and the fact that the other boy had been harboring such an…intense crush completely under Keith’s radar was a bit disconcerting.

“You never knew? Seriously?” Lance sighed dramatically, “Oh my god this is so embarrassing.”

“No, it’s _cute_.” Keith smirked, “I’m flattered, honestly.”

“Fuck you, dude.” But Lance’s words held no heat, and he gave him a sideways glance, “Really, though? You never saw me like that?”

Keith huffed a laugh, “Romantically? No way. You were a snot-nosed little punk when we met.”

“I wasn’t that bad.” Lance swiped his thumb over Keith’s pulse point absentmindedly.

“No, not after you learned that not everything had to be a competition between us,” Keith conceded.

Lance pointed a finger at Keith, “Hey, if you didn’t leave such a big cape to fill I wouldn’t have acted that way.”

“Anyways,” Keith rolled his eyes, “After you finally got your head out of your ass, I realized you were sorta okay.”

He snorted, “’Sorta okay’; wow such heartfelt words, Keith. Please, don’t strain yourself.”

Keith rolled onto his stomach, freeing his other hand to lightly punch Lance’s leg. Lance captured it instead, brushing his lips lightly against his knuckles, leaving Keith feeling some type of way.

“Fine, you _asshole_ , I realized you were like the best little brother a guy could’ve asked for,” He huffed out in a breath.

Lance smiled, a bright, full and toothy one, completely devoid of any of its usually edge or sharpness. The sight of it felt like coming home.

Keith leaned up to bring Lance into a kiss, but was stopped with a hand to his chest. He leaned back on his knees and shot Lance a confused look.

“Uh no way, you can’t just say how you used to look at me like a kid brother and then instantly try and kiss me,” Lance tut’d, “I need to know what changed, otherwise I’m worried this is some freaky kink for you; and in that case I gotta shame ya because what the fuck.”

Keith scrunched his nose, “Oh don’t be gross—of course I don’t see you as a brother anymore.”

“Okay, so what changed?” Lance shrugged a shoulder, “Because on my end, my feelings have always been more or less the same.”

“Even when you dropped me off a building that one time?” Keith said wryly.

“Okay, I instantly jumped after you and I caught you so like that doesn’t really count.” Lance paused, averting his eyes, “But like, yeah, I guess even then, despite how twisted inside I felt, a part of me was still…”

“Into me?” Keith smirked.

Lance rolled his eyes and shoved him a bit with his shoulder, “Who is being the asshole now?”

Keith pretended to think, “Uh, still you.”

Lance mock-glared at him. Keith grinned back widely until Lance cracked and laughed.

“Fair, but the point still stands,” Lance gazed at him, a smidge of seriousness permeating his tone, “What changed?”

And that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? What had shifted so radically that Keith stopped viewing Lance as a pesky younger brother, and instead as a romantic partner? He knew the answer, knew it as he knew anything with certainty—the sun rose in the east, you could break up to five of a man’s fingers before he went into shock and stopped being useful for intel, and that when Lance came back that night and revealed himself to Keith on that rooftop, he had been right; the person Keith and Shiro had buried all those years was gone.

This new Lance, for all his similarities he shared with the pre-demise one, was changed. The way he walked, the way he spoke, the ways in which he viewed Gotham, and crime and the entirety of the world was different. A before and after picture, that on first glance didn’t seem too unlike but spend enough time looking at them side-by-side and the distinctions became starker.

But the implications of all that—all of which were, of course, left unsaid—were too raw, bordering on brutal. It seemed to affirm that Lance had been irrevocably damaged and destroyed, despite the scars being healed and there was something powerfully dangerous in that notion. Keith went for a semi-truth.

He shrugged, pushing for indifference, “I dunno I guess we grew up.”

“Oh.” Lance’s eyes widened a bit, and nodded to himself, “I see.”

Which, Keith winced, alright that sounded bad because the whole point was the Lance _didn’t_ grow up. His life was brutally cut short by a sadistic psychopath and the trauma that Lance had been forced to endure since then had altered him.

The room felt weighted down, nothing like the float-y vibe Keith had been aiming for.

“Lance.” Keith looked up, hoping to say something placating but instead noticed the other man’s shoulders shaking.

With _laughter_.

“Oh my fucking god.” Lance tilted his head back, face scrunched up in uproarious giggles, “So all it took to get you to notice me was, what? For me to throw you off a building or two? Challenge your most fundamental philosophies?”

The truth of it was so completely unfunny, all that they had done to and for each other not being in the least bit humorous, that Keith started snickering right along with him.

“Dude, I don’t know how I got the rep for being the most fucked up in the group.” Lance cackled, “You obviously are; what’s wrong with you?”

Keith clutched at his stomach, the laughter edging on painful, “I don’t know. Why am I like this?”

“I don’t know.” Lance sputtered out, “A side effect of being an orphan?”

Keith spoke through snickers, “Yeah, probably. Jesus.”

The two spent the next few moments trying to calm themselves down only to get started up again just by looking at the other. The whole situation was just so utterly ridiculous.

Then again, they and all their closest friends wore costumes and paraded around at night fighting crime, so what in their lives wasn’t ridiculous? Their whole lives were centered on the strange and surreal, so it only made sense that their relationship did too.

Lance, finally calmed, save for a lingering giggle, wiped his hand across his face, finally looking at the time on his phone.

“I didn’t realize how late it was.” He noted.

_Well,_ Keith thought, sobering up, _it was nice while it lasted_.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” He tried not to sound clingy, and probably did anyways.

Lance scrubbed at his neck, “I mean-”

“Because,” –And what was Keith doing?—“if not, you could just sleep here tonight? If you wanted to, I mean it is pretty late and the streets are dangerous.”

“Aw, Keith-y, are you worried about me?”

Keith scoffed, “No, more like concerned about the innocent people you’ll no-doubt terrorize.”

“If you’re just going to be mean—” Lance pouted, and half-pretended to get out of the bed.

“No!” Keith pulled him back down, ignoring Lance’s smug look at his outburst, “I mean, of course, I always worry about you. Someone has to, out of the two of us.”

“Alright,” Lance’s eyes were soft, “I’ll stay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Lance seemed confused, “Why do you look so shocked?”

“I don’t mean to, I just. Not to make a thing out of it—”

“Keith, you love making ‘things’ out of everything.”

Lance even included little air quotes around ‘things’ because he was a dick like that.

Keith rolled his eyes, “Shut it. I was just going to say you’ve never spent the night before.”

“Annnd you’ve never spent the night at my place?” Lance deadpanned, lips quirking.

Keith sputtered, “Well! You never offered!”

Lance narrowed his eyes, “Yeah and neither have you?”

Which was completely true; Keith had never made a protesting comment when Lance would start shuffling on his clothes—which, now that he thought about it, Lance usually did so _really_ slowly almost as if—

“Oh.”

_Keith, why are you so dumb?_  

“Yeah, ‘oh’. C’mere you,” Lance laid down, pulling Keith with him.

Usually, Keith wasn’t one for being the little-spoon (“You’re never a ‘spoon’, Keith. More like a knife.” Lance had once playfully teased him.) but he folded himself against Lance with minimal grumbling. Lance’s arm was draped around his torso, with his hand tangling with Keith’s.

“You know,” Lance mused, “All you ever had to do was ask and I would’ve stayed.”

Keith didn’t know what to say. He always thought Lance was the one rushing out the door after their little trysts but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe—

“You think too much, you know that?” Lance’s voice was getting all gravel-y, an indication he was tired.

Keith didn’t know what it said about them that he knew that. He hoped it was good, though.

“What?”

“I can _hear_ you thinking, dude.” Keith felt him kiss the top of his head, “Go to sleep.”

Keith huffed but did as he was told, his eyes sliding shut. He really was exhausted, the day having been a long one, and their joint-patrol to keep Gotham’s streets safe even longer. In no time at all, Keith felt himself start to drift off.

“Keith.”

_Or not._

“I thought we were supposed to be sleeping?”

“Okay. Never mind, goodnight.”

Keith sighed, “No, you already woke me back up so might as well, so spill it.”

“If you—” Lance cut himself off, “No, never mind. It’s stupid.”

“And when has that ever stopped you before..?”

Keith agreed he probably deserved the small pinch Lance dealt him for that one.

“Don’t be a dick.”

“Then tell me what you wanted to say!”

“Fine, I just.” Lance paused before rushing out, “I wondered if, if you had the choice between me as your, ya’know, ‘little brother’, or me as your, _whatever_ , which would you choose?”

Keith was going to ignore that blatant use of ‘whatever’ that was being used to encompass the issue both had when it came in trying to accurately define what they were exactly. Or what this all meant. This being them hooking up, or spending patrols together, or spending Friday’s watching shitty space-sci-fi films together.

Ignoring all that because the question itself was difficult enough to deal with.

“I dunno,” Keith shrugged, feeling chilled despite Lance’s rampant body heat, “Does it really matter?”

He could hear police sirens outside, blaring as they sailed right past his apartment building before dying out when they rounded the block corner. Distantly, he wondered who needed saving. The shorter list to make in this city probably would’ve been who _didn’t_.

“I guess not.” Lance finally said, “Goodnight, Keith.”

Keith waited to see if any more was going to be said on the matter, but when several minutes passed he took it as a no.

“’Night, Lance.” He whispered.

It was quiet; the only sound coming from the soft whirring of the ceiling fan.

 

 

(If he was being honest—and honest in ways Keith rarely ever was—the answer was that he would always pick the option that meant Lance never had to become familiar with the repetitive sound of his bones snapping, or the learn the way in which is skin smelt as it burned.)

**Author's Note:**

> what is chronological order? what is sequence? what is seamless plot?
> 
> potential funeral scene flashback-- too sad or nah?
> 
> Also, I really appreciate all the wonderful comments/kudos you guys have been leaving and honestly it's what has made me continue to write what was supposed to be just a little blurb my obsessive brain came up with !


End file.
